Christian, Thanks so much for sharing this! -----Original Message----- From: chaoscope-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:chaoscope-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Christian Weiß Sent: Friday, September 29, 2006 3:26 PM To: chaoscope@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; Christian (T-Online) Subject: [chaoscope] Tutorial: transparent background Hello, with the new possibility to save a fractal as "opacity bitmap" it is very easy to make the background transparent within your grafic application. I will try to explain how I manage this. Your grafic application should be able to work with layers and mask layers. I use Paint Shop Pro. The possibility to save a render as "opacity bitmap" is only available for the render type "solid". Okay, here we go. 01 - create your fractal, use solid as render type 02 - set up the colors for your fractal (here you have to play around a bit, make test renders to see how it will look) 03 - render finally (increase the number of iterations for better results - this increases the render time also) 04 - save your render as normal bitmap and as opacity bitmap 05 - open your grafic application and load the normal image and the opacity bitmap image Now comes the part which works wonderful in Paint Shop Pro 06 - first duplicate the layer of the original image 07 - append a mask layer for the duplicated layer by using a picture as mask. The picture is the opacity bitmap picture. After this your duplicated layer will become a group layer containing the mask and the rendered image. 08 - if you hide the original background layer you'll see that your fractal has a transparent background now 09 - i suggest to combine the group layer 10 - you can now place some other layers before this group layer and fill them for example with a nice texture Your layer structure should look like this: group layer texture layer background layer (hidden) 11 - you can also play around with some effects of your grafic application 12 - if you are happy with the result combine all layers and save your image That was it. Here are some sample images: http://www.3dspots.de/gfx_self/showIt.php?file=chaoscope~~p2~~laughing_energ y_reworked.jpg http://www.3dspots.de/gfx_self/showIt.php?file=chaoscope~~p2~~circle_symetry .jpg http://www.3dspots.de/gfx_self/showIt.php?file=chaoscope~~p2~~dancing_lights .jpg I have to say that i am german so please excuse some spelling mistakes. I hope you find this one usefull. Please feel free to add comments or suggestions. Best regards Christian (aka X-PaX)